[5] Shopify Shipping Apps Reviewed, Rates, Discounts, Policy & Zones

Last updated February 19, 2019

Ecommerce stores need to take shipping seriously, as delivery is the final customer touchpoint on the purchase journey. Customers can associate the delivery experience with a retailer’s brand reputation. This means a bad delivery experience can cause lost sales and unhappy customers. As a best practice, retailers should find a number of reliable shipping partners to fulfill their orders. However, contacting multiple carriers and negotiating rates takes a lot of time and effort. One way to greatly reduce the amount of effort needed to work with multiple carriers is to use Shopify Shipping.

Shopify Shipping is an out of the box shipping solution that gives you access to discounted shipping rates from DHL, UPS, and USPS.

This feature also allows you to offer calculated rates (as opposed to flat shipping rates) at your store checkout. No matter what Shopify plan you’re on, you can display calculated rates at checkout from USPS, DHL Express, UPS, and Canada Post.

Unfortunately, Shopify Shipping has its limitations.

Currently, it is only available to Shopify stores based in the US and Canada. Also worth noting is that if your Shopify store is based in Canada, the only carrier you have discounted rates for is Canada Post.

Also, if you have your own business accounts with USPS, Canada Post, UPS, or FedEx, you can only display calculated rates at checkout if you are on the Advanced Shopify Plan or higher.

We’ve researched the top 5 highly rated shipping apps and what they can offer you. What we found was that they all offer discounted rates with major express and postal couriers, opportunities to automate your shipping, and of course, integrate easily with Shopify in addition to other platforms and marketplaces.

Pricing: No subscription or monthly fees – only pay for your shipping costs

Unique Selling Point: To make international shipping hassle-free, their platform shows the exact amount of import taxes, VAT, GST, and other additional fees so there are no surprises on the total shipping cost. Their Rates at Checkout feature shows these fees at checkout so customers are fully aware of all shipping costs.

Limitations: Shipments must originate from US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Netherlands, or Australia. For those on the Basic Shopify plan, they will need to activate “carrier calculated shipping” to use the Rates at Checkout feature, for an additional fee per month.

Pricing: No subscription or monthly fees – $0.05 per label, $0.01 per tracking number (non-Shippo labels)

Unique Selling Point: You can print return labels for domestic shipments free of charge. You will only be billed if it’s used. It’s possible to also do this for international return labels, but it requires having a business account with a carrier that is enabled for importing returns from other countries.

Limitations: If your shipments originate from outside the US, you can’t benefit from their discounted rates. International customers can only use Shippo if they add their account credentials from FedEx, UPS, or DHL. This will allow them to compare rates and print labels.

Unique Selling Point: They offer a mobile app on Android and iOS, which you can use at no extra cost. You can import orders, print labels, add tags & notes, track shipments, send notification emails, and see analytics.

Limitations: Shipments must originate from the US, Canada, Australia, or the UK. No live chat customer service options for the cheapest plans ($9 and $29 per month), and only Enterprise clients ($159/month) get access to customer service phone support.

Unique Selling Point: You can opt-in to their “Shopify Seller Suite”. For additional fees per month, you can get inventory management and customer marketing tools such as product recommendation and abandoned cart emails. Pricing for these services vary depending on your plan.

Limitations: Shipments can only originate from the US. It is not possible to generate return labels for international shipments.

Pricing: No subscription or monthly fees – only pay for your shipping costs

Unique Selling Point: In addition to offering discounted shipping rates for air freight, they also offer access to over 40 LTL (Less Than Truckload) carriers within the US in addition to volume consolidation services.

Limitations: Services are only available to US and Canadian merchants. LTL services are limited to only US origins and destinations. For international shipments, they do not provide all documents required for customs processing.

Today’s consumers have high expectations for shipping and delivery. It’s comforting to know that Shopify merchants have access to the tools needed to make logistics less intimidating for their business and more flexible for their customers.

If we had to choose a favourite out of the shipping apps we’ve reviewed, we’re a fan of Easyship. We like how there are no monthly or subscription fees, and no additional charges to print labels.

Though they aren’t everywhere yet, you can use them to ship orders from strategic locations (such as the US, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Singapore) to any country in the world. We are also impressed with how they simplified international shipping by offering tax & duty calculations, in addition to automatically generating the paperwork needed for customs. This makes it a great overall app for small businesses who want to start shipping globally.